Marcos Ortega, better known by his stage name Lorn, is an American electronic musician. Born in Normal, Illinois, Ortega grew up in central Illinois towns and eventually moved to Chicago, where he listened to electronic artists on the radio station WNUR as a teenager. Since Lorn’s first release in 2006 his music was played in the UK by Mary Anne Hobbs on BBC Radio and subsequently XFM, he has performed guest mixes several times for her radio shows. Lorn was invited to create a track for the soundtrack of Darren Aronofsky’s 2010 film Black Swan, which Mary Anne Hobbs was working on, however the track was not used.
Lorn signed with Flying Lotus’ label Brainfeeder in 2009, and released his debut album Nothing Else in June 2010, which was mastered by electronic artist Clark. The release of Nothing Else has moved his mastery of emotion to a new level. Influenced by the sounds of metal, drum and bass, ambient, classical, early hip hop, funk and the inherent pain of human existence, the music that pushes itself out of Lorn’s head is uncompromising to the point of defiance, sharply reflecting his commitment to his craft that has inspired so many others.
He also received exposure in 2010 with his remix of grime musician Jammer’s track “Better Than”. He lived in New York for a time, and by 2010 had moved to Milwaukee. Claiming that Nothing Else was too cold, Lorn signaled a transition by naming his new album after the 1939 novel by infamous literary outsider John Fante. That human side, again, factors heavily in the songs on Ask the Dust, but in different ways: more vocals, an overall claustrophobic feel, and a cinematic flavor that puts the listener in the action. Vocals appear sporadically throughout the album, sometimes as barely-audible murmurs, sometimes as guttural mutterings, and occasionally as full-on singing. The whispers and murmurings, even while not clear enough to be coherent, provide that sense of humanity, the hint that someone’s inside the songs, serving as a counterpoint to the sometimes-hard surfaces of these electronic pieces.
He produced an OST for the video game Killzone: Shadow Fall, which was released in 2014 also on Ninja Tune. Since 2014 he has released five albums, Vessel, A/D, REMNANT, RARITIES and DROWN THE TRAITOR WITHIN, as well as several EPs, on the independent label Wednesday Sound.
His music has been used in a number of video games, movies and TV shows, including Ghost in the Shell, CSI, Silicon Valley, Furi, and Sleeping Dogs. Lorn has stated that he is influenced by Drexciya, Ubderground Resistance, Dom & Roland and Aphex Twin.
